It sounds bonkers, but for Tasmanian mum Bec Haight, it's cheaper for her to fly her family to Melbourne than to be seen by a doctor in her home city.
An increasing number of GP clinics across the country have moved away from a bulk-billing payment system in favour of privately charging patients.
"The federal government have never really increased the Medicare rebate by how much it costs to actually provide the service."If GPs do accept the bulk-billing rate for everyone, then it is a difficult business model to go forward.", meaning many patients face out-of-pocket costs when going to the doctor.
"We [Tasmanians] tend to be older, and lower socio-economic, we have more chronic diseases, and we have poor health literacy, so for all of those reasons we really need people to get access to good general practice primary health care."
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